Wednesday, December 22, 2010

This Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of International Migrants Day and the 20th anniversary of the passage of the U.N. Convention to Protect Migrant Workers. This is an important moment to reflect on the fact that today nearly one billion people are on the move across the world, and they are increasingly the target of hatred and violence. That’s why I am celebrating International Migrants Day by signing the pledge to respect immigrants everywhere by dropping the i-word and demanding that the media do the same.

Politicians and media alike use the word “illegal” to describe human beings without immigration status, sometimes shortening “illegal immigrant” to “illegals.” While this may seem trivial to some, the language of criminality plays an enormous part in moving people along the continuum from language to violent behavior. Calling people “illegal,” describing them in ways that make them less them human, recasts them as members of an undeserving sub-class that are owed less respect than what would otherwise be acceptable for “regular” human beings. [...]

Oakland, CA – The Obama Administration and Congress need to shift away from the immigration policing regime that the government has been building over the past decade, according to a new report issued within days of International Migrants Day, December 18. Injustice for All: The Rise of the Immigration Policing Regime, is published by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) and points to the dramatic growth of a multi-faceted immigration control system that is normalizing government abuses against immigrants in the U.S.

The report is based on over 100 stories of rights abuses documented during 2009-2010 by HURRICANE: The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network, an initiative of NNIRR. Injustice for All raises concern that increased policing through Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) with state and local agencies, along with heightened border security, is undermining the health and safety of entire communities.

Injustice for All is the third report from HURRICANE, which maintains a national database of rights abuses against immigrants.

Ada Volkmer, coordinator of the Western North Carolina 100 Stories Project that contributed to the report, explained, “We found that when local police have immigration enforcement authority they are more prone to perpetrate abuses, including racial profiling.”

The North Carolina project was started by community groups to document abuses and organize for redress following widespread experience with law enforcement discrimination and abuse in the region. “Immigration-police collaboration makes our communities more vulnerable to abuses and exploitation because people do not trust the police and will not go to them to report crimes,” Ms. Volkmer added.

Ayesha Mahmooda, an organizer with DRUM: Desis Rising Up & Moving and contributor, stated, “In New York, South Asian workers and community members are reporting stolen wages and unsafe working conditions. They are very concerned that employers act with impunity and create a climate of fear by threatening them with deportation if they complain about working conditions.”

Laura Rivas, coordinator of the HURRICANE initiative, said, “We are calling on the Obama Administration and Congress to suspend the policing operations, the detentions and deportations. We want an aggressive investigation into the abuses; they must hear from our communities.”

In addition to calling for policy changes, Injustice for All calls on members of Congress to conduct field hearings to hear directly from community members—workers, men, women, children, youth, families, neighborhoods—who have experienced the rise in racial profiling, workplace abuse, forced family separation, and hate violence.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Minneapolis, MN - On Dec. 14, Juan and Maria, two workers from Chipotle Mexican Restaurant who are Mexican immigrants, spoke out at a press conference after being fired as part of a statewide immigration sweep. Over 20 other fired Chipotle workers stood by them as they told what has happened over the past week and presented their demands to Chipotle Mexican Restaurant and to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Starting on Dec. 6, more than 80 workers have been fired at Chipotle Mexican restaurants around the state in coordinated immigration-related firings. [...]

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The flow of immigrants to the United States has resumed, after falling to the lowest level in decades during the recession, a new study finds.

The number of immigrants in the United States was estimated to have risen by about half a million in the year that ended in 2009, a jump from the previous year, when immigration stopped almost completely during the recession, according the study, which was conducted by the Brookings Institution and is being released on Thursday. [...]

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Like many successful illegal-immigration populists, Russell Pearce gets his "hard costs of illegal immigration," and his talking points, from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based, self-described public interest nonprofit founded in 1979.

By Terry Greene Sterling, The Village VoiceDecember 1, 2010

On June 5, hundreds rallied at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix in support of SB 1070, the harshest state immigration law in the nation, which had been signed by Governor Jan Brewer six weeks earlier.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Rally to Support Victor ToroMonday, December 6, 12 noon to 1 pmAt the corner of Lafayette and Worth StreetsLower Manhattan, New York City(behind Federal Building near Thomas Paine Park; J/Z to Chambers Street, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge, R/N to City Hall)

On December 6 the U.S. government will continue its three-year campaign to deport a New York community and immigrant rights activist who fled Chile after being imprisoned and tortured under the Pinochet dictatorship.

A founder of Chile's MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement), Victor Toro has lived in New York City with his family since 1986. He and Nieves Ayress, his wife, have played a leading role in progressive politics in the city over the years; their accomplishments include the creation of La Peña del Bronx, a local political and cultural community center. Now 68 years old, Toro is facing the threat of deportation to Chile, which is again ruled by a rightist government. He is seeking political asylum.

Judge Sarah Burr has said that the upcoming hearing will be the last one; after this she will issue a ruling. Some 30 of Toro's supporters, many standing, filled the small courtroom for the most recent hearing, on October 15; Toro's defense committee is asking for people come out again on December 6 to show how strongly the community supports this longtime activist.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Timothy Wise: Mexican agriculture was undermined by NAFTA and companies like Smithfield

The Real News NetworkNovember 26, 2010

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, coming to you from Tufts University in Boston. In the recent US midterm elections, one of the hot-button issues in many parts of the country was the issue of undocumented workers--some people call [them] illegal immigrants. What effect does it have when people, because of their status, are willing to work for sometimes even below minimum wage? But the question that rarely gets asked in this debate is: why are so many people from south of the border here? And what happened to the economies of countries like Mexico? And did in fact US policy have something to do with it? Now joining us to talk about that question is Timothy Wise. He's director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Boston. So why do so many people head north looking for work? [...]

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Williamsburg kosher food company is locked in a battle with former workers who charge they were stiffed out of overtime pay - and then fired when they complained.

National Labor Relations Board investigators found that Flaum Appetizing Corp. illegally booted the workers, and ordered the company to cough up around $260,000 in back pay. But owner Moshe Grunhut has refused to comply - saying he won't pay the workers because they're undocumented immigrants.

The fired employees said they spent years working as much as 80 hours a week for minimum wage with no overtime, for bosses who often peppered them with verbal abuse. [...]

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

As deportations have increased under the Obama administration, immigration judges have also increasingly denied requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people who were legitimately entitled to stay in the country [1], according to new data obtained by Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse.

From July to September of this year, for instance, almost a third of all deportation cases brought by ICE were rejected by immigration judges—up from 12 months earlier, when the rate was one out of every four. According to TRAC, judges have rejected removal orders for more than a quarter of a million individuals in the past five years. [...]

Monday, November 29, 2010

Oakland, California - This coming week, if Sen. Harry Reid keeps his word, Congress may get a chance to vote on the DREAM Act. First introduced in 2003, the bill would allow undocumented students graduating from a US high school to apply for permanent residence if they complete two years of college or serve two years in the US military. Estimates state that the act would enable 800,000 young people to gain legal residence status and eventual citizenship.

A vote in Congress would be a tribute to thousands of these "sin papeles," or people without papers. For seven years, they have marched, sat in, written letters and mastered every civil rights tactic in the book to get their bill onto the Washington, DC agenda. [...]

This workshop will focus on and emphasize immigration themes and issues and is open to anyone who is interested in these issues or would like to learn more about them while simultaneously training in Image Theater techniques. The workshop will especially benefit people who are working inthe area of immigrants' rights.

Saturday, November 20, 2010 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, andSunday, November 21 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

On Sunday morning, David Wilson, co-author (with Jane Guskin) of The Politics of Immigration (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58367-155-9) will give a special presentation that will augment and enhance the work which develops and is created in this workshop.

No prior theater experience is necessary to participate in this workshop. Participants must commit to attending both sessions in their entirety. During Theater of the Oppressed workshops a process develops among the members and when people arrive late, leave early or fail toreturn to the next session that process is compromised. If you think you will not be able to attend the whole workshop please consider enrolling in a future workshop when your schedule will allow you to attend for its complete duration.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

As the Obama administration steps up efforts to deport immigrants held on criminal charges, federal officials in New York City have long been on the job. At the city’s main jail on Rikers Island, immigration officers comb through lists of foreign-born inmates, then question, detain and deport about 3,200 of them a year.

Immigration authorities say they decide whom to flag by considering the severity of the crime and the inmate’s criminal history and immigration record. Their top priority, they say, is removing the most dangerous offenders.

But a new analysis of Rikers Island statistics by Justice Strategies, a prisoner advocacy group based in New York, shows that among inmates held on drug charges, those accused of misdemeanors were chosen for deportation proceedings more often than those charged with felonies. [...]

Sunday, November 14, 2010

More than 6 in 10 Latinos in the United States say discrimination is a “major problem” for them, a significant increase in the last three years, according to a survey of Latino attitudes by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group.

In 2007, the center reported, 54 percent of Latinos said discrimination was a major problem. That year, nearly half of Latinos — 46 percent — cited language as the primary cause for that discrimination. In the new survey, 36 percent — the largest number — said that immigration status was the leading cause. [...]

Saturday, November 13, 2010

France is the second immigrant nation in the world, after the United States. For more than a century, migrant workers – often from countries colonized by France and from Eastern and Southern Europe – came to build the country.

by Karen Wirsig, The BulletOctober 19, 2010

At the end of the afternoon of May 27, a mass demonstration marched into the Place de la Bastille in Paris. The march itself represented what can now be viewed as a low point in the national union mobilizations to challenge the proposed weakening of France's public pension regime and other reactionary responses of Nicholas Sarkozy's government to the world economic crisis. But despite the rain, despite the niggling worry that fatigue was overtaking the movement and apathy the French public, a group of marchers went to work making sure it was a day the French labour movement won't soon forget.

Workers without status demonstrating against the Sarkozy government reforms.Hundreds of striking workers without status, known as “travailleurs sans papiers,” set about occupying the steps of the Bastille Opera House in what was to be a crucial stand in their astounding strike. [...]

Friday, October 29, 2010

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

by Laura Sullivan, NPROctober 28, 2010

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants. [...]

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The U.S. is set to defund the troubled project. It was intended to keep a high-tech eye on the Mexican border.

By Brian Bennett, Tribune Washington BureauOctober 22, 2010

Reporting from Washington — The Department of Homeland Security, positioning itself to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.- Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar project involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors.

The result, after an investment of more than $1 billion, may be a system with only 53 miles of unreliable coverage along the nearly 2,000-mile border. [...]

Monday, October 25, 2010

[The resolution below was passed at Laborers International Union of North America Local 270 in San Jose, California, which submitted it to the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council where it passed unanimously on October, 18, 2010, with the support of UNITE HERE Local 19 and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5. For more information on the Dignity Campaign, go to http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2010/08/resolution-to-support-immigration.html .]

A RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT AN IMMIGRATION POLICYBASED ON LABOR AND HUMAN RIGHTS

WHEREAS: Thousands of U.S. union members have been fired as a result of the enforcement of employer sanctions against workers in the workplace, including 475 janitors in San Francisco, 1200 janitors in Minneapolis, 300 janitors in Seattle, as well as workers who have stood up to lead organizing drives into our unions, including 2000 sewing machine operators at American Apparel in Los Angeles, and

WHEREAS: Immigration reform bills in Washington, including the Schumer proposal, the REPAIR proposal by Senator Schumer and several other senators, and the CIR-ASAP proposal by Congressman Luis Gutierrez, will cause more of our members to be fired through programs like E-Verify, the national ID card and employment verification, and will make it more difficult for unions to organize non-union workplaces by making immigrant workers even more vulnerable to firings, deportations and the denial of their rights through workplace enforcement, and

WHEREAS: the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, and other similar agreements, and structural adjustment policies and other so-called economic reforms continue to boost corporate profits while creating massive poverty in countries like Mexico, El Salvador and others, and that as a result, millions of workers and farmers are displaced and have no alternative but to migrate in search of work, and therefore will continue to come to the United States to work, join our unions and participate in our organizing drives, and

WHEREAS: the Mexican government fired 44,000 electrical workers and has tried to smash their union, the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), and brought thousands of heavily armed police into Cananea copper mine to try to smash the 3-year strike of the Mineros, in both cases to create better conditions for giant corporations by breaking unions, privatizing workplaces and throwing workers out of their jobs, and that as a result many of those workers will be forced to come to the United States in order to find work and help their families survive, and

WHEREAS: the largest corporations and employer groups in the United States, including WalMart, Hyatt, Smithfield, the Associated Building Contractors and others have sought to expand guest worker programs, forcing people to come to the United States only through those schemes that treat them as low wage workers with no rights, in conditions described as "Close to Slavery" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement has called for basic reform of our immigration laws, and adopted a position at the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles in 1999 that demands the repeal of employer sanctions, immediate amnesty for undocumented workers, protection of the right to organize for all workers, the strengthening of family reunification as the basis of immigration policy, and opposition to guest worker programs, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement believes that solidarity with workers fighting for their rights in Mexico and around the world is an important part of immigration reform,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO reiterates its support for the immigration position adopted by the AFL-CIO Convention in 1999, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO rejects all the proposals in Congress that promote employer sanctions and the consequent firing of immigrant workers, open the doors to new guest worker programs, and do not contain a program for the quick and inclusive legalization of undocumented workers, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO strongly supports proposals for immigration reform that include the renegotiation of NAFTA, CAFTA and all other trade agreements, including those with Colombia and South Korea, in order to stop the enforced poverty that displaces communities abroad and "Right Not to Migrate", to protect jobs in the United States, and will oppose any new trade agreements that cause such displacement and do not protect jobs, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO supports the proposal for an alternative immigration reform bill made by the Dignity Campaign, because it is based on protecting the labor and human rights for all people, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO supports the SME and the Mineros, and calls on union members and working people to defend their rights by developing and taking supportive actions, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO forwards this resolution and the Dignity Campaign summary to the Congresspersons that represent this area, to our affiliates, Northern California Labor Councils, State Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, and to the community organizations with which we work on issues of immigration for their concurrence and action.---------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIGNITY CAMPAIGN

A PROPOSAL FOR ALTERNATIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM BASED ON HUMAN, CIVIL AND LABOR RIGHTS FOR ALL

1. Legalization

Legalize all people without status quickly, with low feesPeople will receive permanent residence statusNewly legalized people are entitled to public benefitsAnyone in the country for five years can apply for legal status

2. Family Reunification

Raise the number of family visas available, and issue all unused visasProcess all applications for family preference visas

3. Repeal Employer Sanctions and Enforce Labor Rights

Immediately repeal employer sanctions, and dismantle the E-Verify dataabaseIncrease enforcement of worker protection laws, for all workersMake threats from employers using immigration status a crimejob creation and job trainng programs for unemployed workersAll people can get a Social Security number, regardless of immigration status

4. Guest Workers and Future Flows

All existing guest worker programs (H1-B, H2-A, H2-B) will end after five years.Reform existing guest worker programs during those five years, force employers to hire domestic workers first, and enforce labor standards for guest workersAll guest workers can organize and join unions, and can sue over violationsMake green cards available during times of low unemployment for migrants who don't qualify for family preference visas

5. Trade Policy and Displacement

Hold hearings about the effects of NAFTA and CAFTA, and collect evidence about the way those agreements displace people.Existing agreements will be renegotiated to eliminate causes of displacement.No new trade agreements that displace people or lower living standards.Prohibit U.S. military intervention or aid to support trade agreements, structural adjustment policies or market economic reforms

6. Due Process and Detention

Repeal federal laws barring drivers licenses to undocumented immigrantsProhibit local law enforcement agencies from enforcing immigration lawEnd roadblocks, immigration raids and sweepsProhibit privately-run detention centers, and tear down existing centersFamilies with children may not be separated by detention or deportation.

7. Repeal Border Militarization and Enforce Human Rights

Dismantle the wall and the "virtual wall" along the borderRemove National Guard troops from the borderEnd the privatization of border control and security operations on the borderEnd criminal charges to prosecute immigrants based on their immigration statusProsecute private vigilante groups for violations of the rights of migrantsReduce the budget for border enforcement and detention, and redirect the funds to social services, healthcare, education, family reunification, processing visa backlogs and enforcing civil rights.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Sheriffs’ budgets are ballooning while commissioners watch helplessly as social services and schools plunge into decrepitude.

Tom Barry, Boston ReviewSeptember/October 2010

Heads bowed in prayer, we stand at a bucolic spot on the banks of the Rio Grande known by locals as Neely’s Crossing. Like most of West Texas, there is nothing here. On the other side, drug wars have turned Mexican border towns in the Valle de Juárez and elsewhere into killing grounds.

As Hudspeth County deputies armed with AR-15 semi-automatic weapons stand guard, we close in around Reverend Jim Garlow. “Lord, we thank you Lord for gathering us here,” he says. “We thank you for all you have given us and our great nation. We ask you Lord to protect American exceptionalism, to protect U.S. national sovereignty, and secure our border.” [...]

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Organizing immigrant workers is not a matter of taking pity on the downtrodden. It requires us to understand what is necessary for the survival of our communities, of our labor movement.

by David Bacon, Monthly Review and Americas ProgramOctober 11, 2010

When I was a union organizer, I had an experience that dramatized for me the importance of the cultural and historical traditions that immigrants from Mexico bring with them when they come to the United States, and how they affect the way people organize.

I was working for the United Electrical Workers, one of the most progressive U.S. unions. We were contacted by workers at a huge sweatshop, Cal Spas. Unhappy with low wages and abusive conditions, they began to organize a union. Then the head of the workers’ organizing committee was beaten up in the middle of the street in front of the plant. It was an obvious effort to scare the workers and make them stop organizing. [...]

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

When Victor Toro settled with his family in the Bronx over 20 years ago he thought he had finally found a place to call home. After being tortured and imprisoned for his work as a Chilean activist under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the 1970’s, Toro spent several years jumping from country to country in search of a safe haven, until finally settling in New York City in 1986. Now 68 years old, Toro may once again be forced into displacement as he heads to a US deportation court on Friday, October 15. [...]

For those in the New York City Area: Victor Toro’s hearing will take place at 9:00am on October 15, 2010 before Judge Sarah Burr. The room can be found on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY. The Victor Toro Defense Committee is urging all supporters to come out. Check http://nycal.mayfirst.org/node/556

For donations to his legal fund: checks can be made payable to: Las Penitas Inc and sent to P.O. Box 739, Bronx, NY 10454.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

What we learned was the Repubicans' “dirty little secret”: they did not want to get rid of the system of undocumented labor, they just wanted to control it.

By Elvira Arellano, Familia Unida LatinaSeptember 28, 2010

While I was in the United States, Familia Latina Unida had the opportunity to meet with the infamous Congressman Sensenbrenner. The Wisconsin Senator had introduced – and passed in the House of Representatives – the most repressive law against the undocumented. The movement had responded with the largest marches in the history of the United States. Later in the spring of that year, the movement forced the passage of comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate, only to have the Republican controlled House of Representatives refuse to even consider it. [...]

We need to get clear: birthright citizenship was a core principle at the founding of the Republic in 1776. Yet now, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wants to hold Senate hearings on the bedrock constitutional precept that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." [...]

“Illegal immigrants are very convenient,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “Employers are quite interested in employing people who are willing to work and to overlook some labor laws.”

By Kirk Semple, New York TimesSeptember 22, 2010

Night and day, the heavy front door rarely stops swinging. Men and women pass one another at the entrance of a four-story building on 21st Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, on their way out to work, or back in for a few hours of sleep between shifts. They are line cooks, construction laborers, deliverymen, deli workers, housecleaners and gardeners. [...]

Saturday, September 25, 2010

A few days before her daughter Rosa’s first birthday, Monica Castro and the girl’s father had a violent argument in the trailer they all shared near Lubbock, Tex. Ms. Castro fled, leaving her daughter behind.

Ms. Castro, a fourth-generation American citizen, went to the local Border Patrol station. [...]

Friday, September 24, 2010

“We always, always hire the undocumented workers,” he said. “It’s not just me, it’s everybody in the industry. First, they are willing to do the work. Second, they are willing to learn. Third, they are not paid as well. It’s an economic decision. It’s less expensive to hire an undocumented person.”

By Sarah Kershaw, New York TimesSeptember 7, 2010

FOR a man facing the possibility of up to 30 years in prison, almost $4 million in fines and the government seizure of his small French restaurant here, Michel Malecot has an unusually jovial and serene air. [...]

Sunday, September 19, 2010

U.S. progressives have expressed a great deal of concern about the effects of anti-immigrant hysteria in the general population, from criminal attacks on immigrants to vicious legislation like Arizona's SB 1070. But instead of just condemning the hysteria, maybe we need to ask ourselves what we've been doing to counter it.

Not very much, according to one experienced immigrant rights organizer. [...]

Saturday, September 18, 2010

[This is the second in a three-part series that takes an in-depth look at a little-known program that is pushing the boundaries of the American justice system along the U.S.-Mexico border: Operation Streamline. NPR's Southwest correspondent Ted Robbins has spent the past three months analyzing court data and documents on the program.]

The Border Patrol says three measures prove Operation Streamline is a success. First, it says, few of those convicted try to cross the border again. Second, it points to the decrease in the total number of people being apprehended crossing illegally. And third, the government says Operation Streamline has allowed it to concentrate on more serious crime. [...]

Friday, September 10, 2010

I feel like the immigrant rights movement has gotten really good at communicating to elected officials, to immigrants themselves, and to people that nominally care about immigrants. However, we have not been able to effectively communicate to people that are legitimately on the fence or falling off the fence to the other side.

By Subhash Kateel, Organizing UpgradeSeptember 1, 2010

In 2006 and again in 2008 I wrote pieces inspired by friends and colleagues working on the ground predicting the coming Immigrant Apartheid. In 2006, I laid out that a set of institutions was developing to ensure that immigrants, non-citizens specifically, “would permanently have less rights than citizens.” [...]

For those of you who missed the standing room only NY premiere at the Wings Theater on August 8th, below are some audience responses to the show (as if you needed more encouragement). And at long last, here is the final and complete schedule of the Families Without Borders tour of "La Casa Rosa."

All performances are free, though we are gratefully accepting donations because...

"La Casa Rosa" has been invited to Arizona State University as the featured performance of a multi-national conference on SB 1070 (Arizona's controversial immigration law). While the conference sponsors have been generous and supportive, airfare and visa extensions even for a truncated troupe will stress their budget, so we are hoping to raise some additional funds on our own to make sure that the voices of these women can be heard in Arizona.

Thank you all one more time for your supportive messages throughout this year-long process. We couldn't have done it without you and we are really looking forward to sharing the final product with you at these special, upcoming events.

Best,Daniel Carlton

September Program / Calendario de SeptiembreAll performances are FREE / Todas presentaciones son GRATIS

Monday, September 20th, 7-9 PM at Yale (theater located inside Morse College and Ezra Stiles College) off Tower Parkway, New Haven, CT.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 7-9 PM at Coop Arts High School, 177 College Street, New Haven, CT.

**La Casa Rosa is looking for volunteers for September to help with each performance, in addition to pre-performance tasks such as outreach, production, and community organizing. Please respond to this email if you are interested in volunteering.

Health officials in the northern Mexican border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, routinely attend persons suffering from AIDS and deported from the United States. Armando Covarrubias Trevino, chief of the Ambulatory Center for the Prevention of AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, told the Mexican press that six deported AIDS victims were seen by Mexican health and immigration officials in Reynosa during the month of August alone. [...]

Sunday, September 5, 2010

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA (8/29/10) - On a ranch north of the Bay Area, several dozen men live in a labor camp. When there's work they pick apples and grapes or prune trees and vines. This year, however, the ranch has had much less work, as the economic recession hits California fields. State unemployment is over 12%, but unemployment in rural counties is always twice what it is in urban ones. Unemployment among farm workers, however, is largely hidden.

In the case of these workers, it's hdden within the walls of the camp, far from the view of those who count the state's jobless. Because they work from day to day, or week to week, there are simply periods when there's no work at all, and they stay in the barracks. [...]

Saturday, September 4, 2010

A deep recession and tougher border enforcement have led to a sharp decline in the number of immigrants entering the United States illegally in the past five years, contributing to the first significant reversal in the growth of their numbers in two decades, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States plunged by almost two-thirds between 2005 and 2009, a dramatic shift after years of growth in the population, according to the report. [...]

Friday, September 3, 2010

In a small, crowded theater in New York's West Village the night of August 8, a group of thirty indigenous women from central Mexico finally got a chance to perform their play before a U.S. audience.

The cast, members of the community group Soame Citlalime ("Women of the Star" in Náhuatl), had spent the past year creating "La Casa Rosa," a 90-minute drama about the impact of immigration on their village, San Francisco Tetlanohcan, east of Mexico City in the state of Tlaxcala. An April tour in New York and New Haven, sponsored by the New Haven-based Institute for Social and Cultural Practice and Research in Mexico (IIPSOCULTA U.S.), had to be cancelled at the last minute when the U.S. embassy in Mexico City denied the group's application for visas. [...]

From Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee RightsAugust 27, 2010

Dear NNIRR members, partners, allies & friends,

Migrant workers continue paying a heavy price as a result of the volatile mixture of the U.S. militarization of immigration control and border communities, the criminalization of migration, the expansion of NAFTA or “free” trade under the “Merida Initiative,” a war on drugs and national security.

On Tuesday, August 24, 2010, devastating news reports began trickling out about a horrific massacre of some 72 international migrants that took place in Mexico. Armed members of a drug cartel had kidnapped these Central and South America migrants. The cartel gunmen were trying to extort ransom money from them to let them continue on their dangerous journey to the U.S. with the hope of reuniting with their families and seek work to survive.

The drug traffickers had tied the migrants’ hands behind their backs and then executed them by shooting them in the back. One migrant who survived the execution, although gravely wounded, dragged himself miles when he stumbled upon a military checkpoint on a highway and alerted them. Some 200 soldiers were mobilized and went to the farmhouse where a heavy gun battle ensued, leaving one soldier and three drug cartel gunmen dead. Then the soldiers made the grisly discovery of the migrants’ bodies, 58 men and 14 women—migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Brazil—who been slaughtered inside a farmhouse close to San Fernando, a small farming community in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas and about a 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.

Epidemic of Abuse and Exploitation of MigrantsThe Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reports that more than 10,000 migrant kidnappings have been reported in the first six months of 2010 in Mexico. Yet, the CNDH and the Mexican government have not worked to effectively protect migrants, expose the abuses and prosecute the traffickers and their collaborators in the police, military and other government entities.

Drug traffickers and smugglers, as well as police and military, often hold migrants hostage and force them to pay high ransoms before they are allowed to continue usually on the last leg of their journey to the U.S. The CNDH said that in the first half of 2009, when only some 9,000 migrant kidnapping cases had been reported, corrupt government officials and police, organized crime, traffickers and other criminals extorted as much as $25 million dollars from kidnapped migrants.

When migrants make it to the U.S.-Mexico border, they fare no better. The U.S. deliberately funnels migrants into the deserts and mountains of Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Texas. Here at the border they are subjected to another layer of abuse. They are thrown into the hands of smugglers and other traffickers who have no second thoughts about abandoning individuals, who are often injured or suffering severe exhaustion, in the wilds, where migrants face a certain death either by extremes of heat or cold.

As a result of criminalization and few if any options to regularize their status or migrate with rights, U.S. and international migration control policies make migrant workers easy targets for exploitation and criminal attacks and extortions, where they live and work or whether in they are in transit or in the U.S.

Although Mexico is a signatory to the “International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families,” the Mexican government’s de facto policies and treatment of migrants is a bloodied mark on the convention. The U.S. is not a signatory to the migrant workers’ human rights convention. U.S. immigration enforcement and services, bound up to the U.S. politics of national security, are rife with abuses and human rights violations.

Mexican and U.S. policies, collusion through inaction, and their own impunity have created a situation where thousands of migrants are being subjected to extremes of abuse. The massacre of migrants in Mexico shows that drug traffickers have “diversified” their wares to include humans. They act with impunity, either as a result of official corruption or collusion that turns a blind eye to the exploitation, and results in the unfortunate death of migrants “funneled” by U.S. policies through the deadly desert and mountainous areas of the border.

Migrants who survive the journey only slightly fare better. Once out of the clutches of traffickers and smugglers they face a gauntlet of unscrupulous police, elected officials and employers who prey upon them. Or they are further criminalized and are hunted down, filling the dungeons of prisons, euphemistically called “detention centers.”

What is to be done?What is to be done? Certainly, we should call for the investigation and prosecution all the abusers and those in government who collaborated in this heinous crime. But even this will not be enough. To prevent further abuses will take historic efforts on our and the immigrant rights and justice movements’ part. It will mean organizing to make the U.S. and Mexican governments decriminalize migration and demilitarize immigration control and border communities. These demands also have to expose the root causes and push back on economic and trade policies that undermine communities and forcibly displace workers and divide families.

For now we ask everyone to take a minute to reflect on this horrendous massacre of innocents and to respect those migrants among us who have survived this odyssey – just to be with their families, to work and support their families and communities back home.

Tucson- Local grassroots organizations join together to launch a community-wide campaign to report collaboration between local and state law enforcement and the Border Patrol. Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Pan Left Productions, and Migra Patrol-Copwatch will announce the details of the Tucson campaign to document racial profiling and abuse.

The Yo Soy Testigo (I am a Witness) campaign includes a phone number (520-261-5890) where Tucson residents can call to report incidents of racial profiling, which will be immediately transmitted to Migra Patrol- Copwatch, which will send volunteers to the scene to document the situation. The effort is focusing specifically on instances where the local and state law enforcement officers are inquiring about immigration status and calling the Border Patrol.

In the wake of the recent ruling by a Phoenix judge to grant an injunction on portions of SB 1070, which prohibits the creation of a new crime and police enforcement of federal immigration law, the Yo Soy Testigo Campaign intends to show that the reality is that the Tucson and South Tucson police departments, Pima County Sheriff, DPS, and other local agencies have been implementing such programs for years.

"We must shed the light on the fact that people have been living in fear of deportation and it's only getting worse," says Jason Michael Aragόn of Migra Patrol-Copwatch. "We are committed to resisting these injustices, and invite the community to be part of this campaign to document the oppression of our families and neighborhoods."

The Yo Soy Testigo campaign is a joint effort to encourage the active participation of the Tucson and South Tucson communities in reporting incidents of racial profiling and abuse on the part of law enforcement. The phone line will be staffed by volunteers of Derechos Humanos, who will document the reports coming into the hotline and notify members of Pan Left and Migra Patrol-Copwatch, who will be dispatched to the scene with cameras.

"We must not allow these injustices to continue to fill us with fear and silence. It is imperative, for the well-being of our communities, that we stand up and denounce these violations of human and civil rights" said Pati Moreno of Derechos Humanos. "We will expose this discrimination and racism, and move our communities toward justice and peace."

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

ROCHESTER — The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers.

“Are you a U.S. citizen?” agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. “What country were you born in?” [...]

When the Border Patrol Comes AboardBy Nin Bernstein, New York Times blogAugust 30, 2010

Nina Bernstein has an article on the front page today about American Border Patrol agents who board trains running completely within the United States looking for undocumented immigrants. Here is her first-person experience on such a train in upstate New York. If you’ve had an encounter with the Border Patrol, let us know in the comment box below.

Traveling from New York City to Buffalo on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited last month, I wondered what I would say if Border Patrol agents showed up on the train at Syracuse or Rochester and asked, “Are you a U.S. citizen?” [...]

Monday, August 30, 2010

Despite the dangers, migrants say they will continue to travel to the U.S.By Frontera NorteSur (FNS), Salem-News.comAugust 30, 2010

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - If Arizona’s SB 1070 law, underlined by the continuing deaths of migrants in the inhospitable, blazing desert of the Southwestern state, dramatizes the crisis of US immigration policy, then the mass murder of 72 Central and South American migrants in the northern Mexican border state of Tamaulipas last week showcases a similar and widening crisis in Mexico. [...]

Thursday, August 26, 2010

ELIZABETH JACKSON: American author David Wilson has written extensively about illegal immigration. He's the co-author of a book titled The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers.

I asked David Wilson whether he saw any similarities in the way politicians in the US and Australia are dealing with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers?

DAVID WILSON: From what I've heard about Australia, yes, it seems like we're hearing solutions to the problem that, you know, that make politicians look as though they're being very hard line in cracking down on things.

And certainly in the case of the US, those policies simply don't work and that's been proven over and over again for the past 30 years. [...]

Born in the U.S.A. Is What Makes Someone AmericanBy Eric Foner, Bloomberg OpinionAugust 17, 2010

For almost 150 years Americans have believed that anyone born here, whatever his or her origins, can be a good citizen. There is no reason to believe the children of illegal immigrants are any different.

Congress should think long and hard before tampering with this essential American principle embodied in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Approved by Congress in 1866 at the outset of Reconstruction and ratified two years later, the amendment establishes the principle of birthright citizenship. With minor exceptions, all persons born in this country are American citizens, whatever the status of their parents. [...]

New Attacks on Birthright Citizenship: “Anchor Babies” and the 14th AmendmentBy Julia Nissen, Council on Hemispheric AffairsAugust 24, 2010

Recently, the somewhat repugnant term “anchor babies” has entered the immigration debate, as certain conservatives call for a reassessment of the 14th Amendment, claiming it wrongly protects the children of undocumented immigrants. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in a surprisingly radical move on his part, appeared on Fox News on July 28th explaining a new tactic dubbed “drop and leave,” in which undocumented mothers come to the U.S. explicitly to have a child.

(Oakland, CA) Earlier today President Obama signed a new bill authorizing an additional $600 million to increase border security, strengthening a deadly border militarization strategy. Tragically, this move will surely increase the number of migrants who perish at the U.S.-Mexico border and the bill contributes nothing to ensuring the safety and rights of migrants and border communities. [...]

Sunday, August 15, 2010

[The San Francisco Labor Council passed this resolution on July 12, 2010. The Labor Council for Latin American Advance (LCLAA), a non-profit organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, passed its own version at its August national convention.]

WHEREAS: Thousands of U.S. union members have been fired as a result of the enforcement of employer sanctions against workers in the workplace, including 1200 janitors in Minneapolis, 300 janitors in Seattle, 475 janitors in San Francisco, as well as workers who have stood up to lead organizing drives into our unions, including 2000 sewing machine operators at American Apparel in Los Angeles, and

WHEREAS: Immigration reform bills in Washington, including the Schumer-Graham proposal, the REPAIR proposal by Senator Schumer and several other senators, and the CIR-ASAP proposal by Congressman Luis Gutierrez, all strengthen employer sanctions, which will cause more of our members to be fired through programs like E-Verify, the national ID card and employment verification, and will make it more difficult for unions to organize non-union workplaces by making immigrant workers even more vulnerable to firings, deportations and the denial of their rights through workplace enforcement, and

WHEREAS: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said that that ”we need to make sure every worker in America - documented or undocumented - is protected by our labor laws.” and that we need immigration reform that “allows immigrants to be securely part of our country from day one-able to assert their legal rights, including the right to organize, without fear of retaliation,” and

WHEREAS: the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, and other similar agreements, and structural adjustment policies and other so-called economic reforms continue to boost corporate profits while creating massive poverty in countries like Mexico, El Salvador and others, and that as a result, millions of workers and farmers are displaced and have no alternative but to migrate in search of work, and therefore will continue to come to the United States to work, join our unions and participate in our organizing drives, and

WHEREAS: President Trumka has said that “the failures of our relationship with Mexico ... cannot be solved with guns and soldiers and fences. They must be addressed through an economic strategy for shared prosperity based on rising wages in both countries,” and

WHEREAS: the Mexican government fired 44,000 electrical workers and has tried to smash their union, the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), and brought thousands of heavily armed police into Cananea to try to smash the 3-year strike of the Mineros, in both cases to create better conditions for giant corporations by breaking unions, privatizing workplaces and throwing workers out of their jobs, and that as a result many of those workers will be forced to come to the United States in order to find work and help their families survive, and

WHEREAS: the largest corporations and employer groups in the United States, including WalMart, Marriott, Smithfield, the Associated Building Contractors and others have sought to expand guest worker programs, forcing people to come to the United States only through those schemes that treat them as low wage workers with no rights, in conditions described as “Close to Slavery” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement has called for basic reform of our immigration laws, and adopted a position at the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles in 1999 that demands the repeal of employer sanctions, immediate amnesty for all undocumented workers, protection of the right to organize for all workers, the strengthening of family reunification as the basis of immigration policy, and opposition to guest worker programs, and

WHEREAS: our labor movement believes that solidarity with workers fighting for their rights in Mexico and around the world is an important part of immigration reform,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council reiterates its support for the immigration position adopted by the AFL-CIO Convention in 1999, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council rejects all the proposals in Congress that promote the firing of immigrant workers, open the doors to new guest worker programs, and do not contain a program for the quick and inclusive legalization of undocumented workers, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council supports only those proposals for immigration reform that would force the renegotiation of NAFTA, CAFTA and all other trade agreements, in order to stop the enforced poverty that displaces communities abroad and to protect jobs in the United States, and will oppose any new trade agreements that cause such displacement and do not protect jobs, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council, supports the proposal for an alternative immigration reform bill made by the Dignity Campaign, because it is based on protecting the labor and human rights for all people, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council supports the SME and the Mineros, and calls on union members and working people to defend their rights by picketing the Mexican consulate and taking other supportive actions, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council forwards this resolution for adoption to the California Labor Federation, the AFL-CIO, and to other local unions and central labor bodies.

Update, August 17, 2010: This resolution is sponsored by the Dignity Campaign, a group of organizations and individuals that have been meeting over the past year "to affirm the need for an immigration reform bill based on human rights."

Saturday, August 14, 2010

I wrote two more stories on my days in Port-au-Prince after the Jan. 12 earthquake, but I didn't get around to typing them up and editing them until this summer. Obviously they are out of date, but they might interest some people.

David L. Wilson, co-author, The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers

YOU SHOULD SAY: "I am calling to leave a message of support for Marlen Moreno who is being deported on August 8th. Marlen is eligible for the DREAM Act when it passes and should not be deported. I ask that Secretary Napolitano and/or Assistant Director Morton please step in to defer her deportation, she is an asset to this country. Thank you."

Woman's Theater Project comes to the United States After Battle with State Dept New Haven, CT / New York, NY (July 27, 2010) After a protracted battle with the U.S. State Department, visas have finally been issued for the members of Soame Citlalime, an all-female theater group from Mexico that has developed "La Casa Rosa" ("The Pink House"), an immigration play. The United States premier performance will take place at Wings Theater on Sunday, August 8th, at 7pm (154 Christopher Street, New York, NY).

"La Casa Rosa" is a collaboration between The Institute for Social and Cultural Practice and Research (IIPSOCULTA), The Migrant Family Support Center (CAFAMI), and Carlton Industries. It arrives in the United States this summer as part of the "Families Without Borders" tour, a multi-state program of workshops and presentations. The productions' goal is to break cultural borders by assembling audiences from all backgrounds to discuss the realities of a globalized world, and to literally reunite the cast of "La Casa Rosa" with their family members working in the United States, many of whom they haven't seen in over 10 years.

How do we protect what's important? How do we advance in a system designed to limit our options? How do we find common ground when the world is intent on keeping us apart?

"La Casa Rosa" is the lesser-told side of the immigration story - that of those left behind. Set against a backdrop of the mysterious disappearance of a local youth and a popular struggle in a rural community, "La Casa Rosa" follows the story of two sisters vying for the control of their ancestral land. In it, two very different visions are realized and the answers to vital ethical questions are approached. Subtitled "Fighting for a Future in a Free Trade World," the play's U.S. tour was stopped by the State Department due to objections regarding the group's mission and the play's content. Visas were finally granted on July 1st after support was offered from New Haven Mayor John Destefano and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

PartnersCarlton Industries: is an arts and advocacy organization whose international programs focus on community empowerment through storytelling and the illumination of hidden realities that act as obstacles to global progress. Founded by theater artist and educator, Daniel Carlton, Carlton Industries has partnered with educational institutions, arts organizations and youth service providers on the creation of original productions and curricula in more than 20 states and 3 countries. Recent productions include the award nominated "Las Escenas de la Cruz (scenes of the cross)," based on the real experiences of the 12 immigrant teens, who performed it at the 2009 Midtown International Theater Festival in Manhattan.

The Migrant Family Support Center (CAFAMI): is a community center in San Francisco Tetlanohcan, which works to bring awareness of and attack the root causes of migration and reduce its negative impact on families, communities and traditional ways of life in the state of Tlaxcala. Some of their current programs include workshops in human and immigrant rights, classes in traditional and endangered local languages, classes in traditional crafts, after school programs for young people, and the community theater project.

About IIPSOCULTAIIPSOCULTA (Institute for Social and Cultural Practice and Research) has been working in Mexico since 2001 to create conditions for equity and justice for migrant families through education, organizing, and solidarity work. IIPSOCULTA provides training and support for people and communities that struggle in resistance to injustices. Some programs include: The Migrant Family Support Center in Mexico and U.S.; Community Organizers for Social Change Volunteer Programs and Internships in Mexico and U.S.; Families Without Borders in Mexico and U.S.; Spanish School for Social Justice in Mexico; Leadership Training for Immigrants in the United States.Website: http://www.iipsocultaus.wordpress.com/

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Do undocumented immigrants want citizenship? Are they more likely to be dangerous criminals? Do they hurt the economy? Do they steal jobs and lower wages? The two sides in the Arizona debate have vastly different answers to these questions. On the face of it, this stand-off appears to be more about information than opinion. [...]

Three months ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the notorious SB 1070, a bill that put her state at the forefront of a movement to intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants.

Since then, activists have responded through legal challenges, political lobbying, grassroots organizing and mass mobilizations. More than a hundred thousand people from across Arizona marched on the state capitol on May 29. Today, hundreds more have pledged to risk arrest through nonviolent direct action. These are the public manifestations of a widespread struggle happening in this state. The organizations leading this fight offer a template of inspiring and strategic action for people around the US who want to join in resistance to these policies. [...]

About The Politics of Immigration

The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers goes beyond soundbites to tackle concerns about immigration in straightforward language and an accessible question-and-answer format. For immigrants and supporters, the book is a useful tool to confront stereotypes and disinformation. For those who are undecided about immigration, it lays out the facts and clear reasoning they need to develop an informed opinion. Ideal for classroom use, the updated and expanded 2017 edition provides a succinct overview of U.S. immigration history, policy, and practice, with detailed notes guiding readers toward further exploration.
Guskin and Wilson have written extensively on immigration and facilitated dozens of dialogues on the topic with students, community activists, congregations, and other public audiences. To arrange a dialogue or for more information, contact them at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com.
To stay in the loop on author events and related resources, follow the book on Twitter (@Immigration_QA) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ImmigrationQA/).